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  #241  
04-18-2015, 06:42 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Ah. Mac caps is only for capacitors and I don't know how to take the board out. So I guess shipping my AG-1980 to TGrant Photo would be best? If I do that, does that make the repaired AG-1980 better than the JVC HR-SR7600U SVHS or do I send both over?

Am I better off shipping my DCR-TRV520 over there as well or is Mac camera just as good? Anything in NJ would be preferred as my parents live there but if TGrant is better, would bite the bullet.
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  #242  
04-19-2015, 06:34 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Also, for the AG-1980, where should the sharpness slider be? Just read somewhere on the forum the middle is actually a bit sharpened than normal. Is there an approximate sharpness level (1/4 less from middle, 1/5 less from middle, etc) you guys set it to or does it differ from machine to machine?
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  #243  
04-19-2015, 10:04 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
So I guess shipping my AG-1980 to TGrant Photo would be best?
Yes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
If I do that, does that make the repaired AG-1980 better than the JVC HR-SR7600U SVHS or do I send both over?
Having had two 7600's I'd have to say that there are plenty of VCR's that would be better than the 7600 in some areas. But you should have both. In fact, you should have maintenance performed on both.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
Am I better off shipping my DCR-TRV520 over there as well or is Mac camera just as good? Anything in NJ would be preferred as my parents live there but if TGrant is better, would bite the bullet.
I haven't seen mention of TGrant's outfit working on legacy camcorders. Why not ask him? They have a good reputation with owners of several types of high-end VCRs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
Also, for the AG-1980, where should the sharpness slider be? Just read somewhere on the forum the middle is actually a bit sharpened than normal. Is there an approximate sharpness level (1/4 less from middle, 1/5 less from middle, etc) you guys set it to or does it differ from machine to machine?
I have absolutely no idea why there's so much mystery about this sharpness control. If you move that slider slowly and gently, you'll notice there's a small "catch" right in the middle of the scale. That is the default position. Move it to the left = soften, move it to the right = sharpen. The default position has the least processing of the other positions on the scale. If you think the results look too sharp, move the slider to the left. If you think the results look too soft, move the slider to the right. Just about everyone I know uses the slider in its default (middle) position. Why some people move the slider all the way to left (soften, which looks pretty much like strong gaussian-type blur to me) is another mystery I don't understand, unless those users are so fond of JVC players that they want all other players to look that way. As I understand it from the old days when people dubbed from tape to tape, the softening is there to try to undo over-sharpening effects from the source player, or to sharpen the results from players that produced less than distinct images. The general rule is: softening reduces the perception of noise (but doesn't remove it), but blurs and eventually obscures fine detail. Sharpening adds edge contrast and often creates sharpening defects (halos) but also exacerbates noise.

The idea behind these added controls, from "sharp" to "Auto" and others (note that the AG-1980 doe not have many of those settings) has to do with the kind of "enhancements" that were and still are popular with people who didn't know what they were doing or who were somewhat short changed in the visual literacy department. The opposite idea is from equally experienced users who seem to feel that this-or-that VCR is better than another because it "doesn't have noise reduction" or "doesn't do any hidden processing", or what not. If you can find a tape player out there that does no internal image processing of any kind, you'll have to spend a great deal more than the cost of any high-end JVC or Panasonic. The idea behind the high-end VCR's most often recommended by advanced hobbyists and shops is that those machines are designed to avoid over-enhancement and to do no more processing than is necessary to clean up some of the worst innate and common defects of VHS tape, thereby delivering a more workable image. The idea that any VCR delivers "exactly" what's on those tapes is nonsense. If their output was all that exact, then the output from all VCR's would look alike. If you want exact, get some lab gear, some 'scopes, and some pro video monitors.
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  #244  
04-19-2015, 10:22 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Thank you Sanlyn. I was asking about the sharpness slider as I came across lordsmurf's comment below recently and thought it was a known thing the AG-1980 naturally over sharpened a bit. Sounds like that hasn't been your experience?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post15835

For the Mac Camera vs TGrant Photo question, if NJRoadfan feels Mac Camera is just as good I'd rather hand in the camcorder and have it returned without shipping if I could. If TGrant is better, I'd send in both the SVHS and camcorder. I'm still in shock no one in NJ/NY is just as good as TGrant.
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  #245  
04-19-2015, 11:13 PM
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If you do contact TGrant, be sure that the owner is aware that this site is sending him business. TGrant has been mentioned more times than I can count in the past few years, and we're fine with it. I edited the VCR suggestion post to specifically mention them. (http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...ing-guide.html)

I'll make changes to the repair sticky as well.

We like reliable shops, and at the moment, it does appear to be the best out there.

I hate Mack Camera. My gripe with them goes back to the 90s.

"Mac" (maccaps) is not "Mack" (mackcamera). Just so there is not confusion. Both were mentioned in recent posts.

By default, the AG-1980 sharpens too much. It has halos. It needs to be just left of the little notch (0 setting, unity setting).

Sharpness was different in the pre-digital era. You could overdo it, yet not see the damage on a weenie little 20" CRT. In the digital era, sharpness damage became obvious even to the novice.

You never want an "exact" signal off a tape. It has chroma crosstalk, timing errors, are more. Yuck. The reason to get a high-end VCR is to fix it. Then you can get the best quality possible from the tape. Not the "exact" quality.

The 7600 is a good 2nd or 3rd unit. It depends on your hardware stack. HVCs are generally not as touchy as a Panasonic, in terms of servicing. You can carefully (properly!) clean them on your own. If EP/SLP has issues, then it needs a realignment. These really were workhorse units.

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  #246  
04-20-2015, 08:28 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Like lordsmurf I'm aware that there's some sharpening at the 1980's default setting, as well as on some of the default settings for JVC 7600, 7900,and 9800 -- in the past I've used all these VCR's. Back when I first started this crazy VHS transfer project in 2002 I gathered all my VHS tapes and cataloged them, to discover that I had 380 hours of recordings. After getting through about 2/3 of those recordings, I'm at the conclusion that most experienced hobbyists and pros arrive at: the setting you use in the final analysis depends on the tapes, their current condition, and how they were recorded to begin with. The idea is to find the setting that gives the most workable capture and inflicts the least damage.

One thing I've never been tempted to do is to increase sharpening, even with fuzzy tapes -- and especially with fuzzy tapes, because they're usually pretty noisy and the last thing you want to do is increase noise during capture. VHS has enough defects to begin with, even with pristine retail issues. Avisynth and VirtualDub have denoisers and sharpeners (and unsharpeners) that are more sophisticated than similar filters in any VCR I know of. So one's experience with restoration filters is ultimately something you have to visualize when you capture.

I'd say I use the default position on the AG-1980's sharpener about half the time, and I level off to the left a bit on other tapes that were obviously recorded with sharpening artifacts and other problems that will look worse and will be the devil to clean up with the default position. So, whether or not the default or another position is the "best" depends on what you're seeing during capture and how you can visualize during capture what will have to be done or avoided. It doesn't take long to get this figured out once you have a couple of decent captures under your belt. It's also not too difficult after a while to see that whatever settings you use during capture might be appropriate (or not) for a particular tape.

I have other VCR's besides the AG-1980, and I had them when my former JVC's were still working. Fact is, sometimes a high-end recorder didn't produce as well as some of those other non-tbc machines. My old DVD recorders used as pass thru (Panasonic ES15's and Toshiba RD-XS34's) can be used as pass-thru tbc's with varying results for those non-tbc players. Those other players aren't cheapies, they just don't have tbc's. One of them tends to over sharpen (but not so bad that it can't be repaired later), and the other has some slight nondefeatable denoising. Again, no tape will play alike on an AG-1980 or anything else. Yeah, it sounds more complicated than it really is. The capture stage is an all-important part of the transfer process, but it's only the starting point. True, you do the best you can at that point, but keep in mind that restoration includes several stages. From what I recall of your previous posts, post-processing hasn't figured very heavily as yet. A lot happens during capture, but a lot happens during restoration as well.

When working with a tape for the first time, I set the player to default positions in order to ascertain how best to handle that tape during capture. Others might prefer another setup, but you have to begin somewhere and with some familiarity of what the player's settings are doing. Don't be afraid to change something to see what you get. If you get problems, undo the change and find the best settings for the tape at hand. Capture one or two tapes as a learning task and follow those one or two projects to the final output stage, then proceed from what you learn. With use and experience, it gets faster and more intuitive.

Right now I'm about halfway through a retail issue of a 1931 classic film that is, pardon my language, a bitch to clean up. It has so many problems that when TCM broadcast that movie I made a high-def capture of it, thinking I'd get a nice clean result. Forget it. The broadcast had the same defects as the VHS issue and on top of that had low-bitrate broadcast compression noise that wasn't on the three copies of that tape that I own. So I thought, wow, I'll use the 1980 for my capture. And guess what? My Panasonic PV-S4670 SVHS machine with the Toshiba pass-thru made a more workable capture than with the 1980. Neither cap was "bad", but the PV-S4670 from 1996 made a capture that was easier to work with. On the other hand, I have a 1991 TV series I recorded on noisy SONY VHS tapes that looks like garbage with the other players but comes out almost ready-to-encode with the 1980.

With past experience, I knew from only a few minutes of capture which player would give the "best" results. So don't don't downplay one player over another. Each has virtues that will be suitable for a particular task.
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  #247  
04-20-2015, 12:33 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Just called TGrant Photo. They said they only handle the VCR decks since camcorders have more delicate parts (I was under the impression AG-1980 was more delicate?). Bummer...

Hi Lordsmurf, what was your beef with Mac Camera as it seems they are my only hope unless any of the below I've found from yelp (not very reliable source, I know) in NYC are better bets:
-Photo Tech Repair Service (same as Chrysler Camera Repair - would need to ship to Chicago. No idea if they're good or not)
-Aryana Electronics (individual. Only does housecalls)

Thank you very much Sanlyn!! Seems this process is a constant adjustment based on what you see. Would you say having it slightly softened is better since the advanced sharpening tools are better? Wish there was some sort of sharp/soft equilibrium tracker...

Last edited by vhsdigital34; 04-20-2015 at 12:59 PM.
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  #248  
04-20-2015, 09:15 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Use the sharpness control as many suggest, nudged just slightly to the left of center. It will soften the image and look more like your JVC. You can always change it if you don't like it, but I'd suggest that trying to "sharpen" 99.9% of home-made VHS during capture is trying real hard just to make life tough -- most of the time.
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  #249  
04-21-2015, 12:39 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Thank you sanlyn!

Hi Lordsmurf, what was your issue with Mac Camera as it seems they are my only hope unless any of the below I've found from yelp (not very reliable source, I know) in NYC are better bets:
-Photo Tech Repair Service (same as Chrysler Camera Repair - would need to ship to Chicago. No idea if they're good or not)
-Aryana Electronics (individual. Only does
Did you continue to have issues with them after the 90s? I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into

Does anyone know or have any experience with these?
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  #250  
04-21-2015, 03:19 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Photo Tech Repair was going to have it sent to Pro Tech Camcorder Repairs in Chicago. Does anyone have experience with them as well?
http://www.protechcam.com/index.html
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  #251  
04-21-2015, 03:40 PM
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Mack sells useless warranties. The first time I bought a high-end VCR, about 20 years ago, I fell for it. You'd pay them a huge amount of $$$, then learn later that it didn't really cover anything useful. So it was about $90 pissed away for no reason. (And $90 all those years ago was like $250+ now!)

Just search for "Mack warranties" on Google, and you'll see lots of comments -- all bad. The complaints you see now are actually tame compared the sites you'd find in the 90s and 00s.

Their service is not any better. For example: http://forums.photographyreview.com/...ice-15679.html

Anything can happen with them.
- the initial estimate is bogus, and its costs much higher when done; they hold your gear hostage until you pay their ridiculous fees
- they lose it, and do not replace it
- they break it, and do not replace it
- they take an ungodly amount of time (months!) to repair even simple issues

Mack is one of the companies that gives New York a bad name, when it comes to photo/audio/video stores. (I've never understood why NY/NJ has all the scammy photo and a/v stores.) They have the typical "rude Yankee" approach to customers, and are about as unpleasant as it gets.

My advice: avoid them!

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  #252  
04-21-2015, 04:40 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Thank you very much lordsmurf, will avoid them like the plague.

I've come across this in my hunt. Does anybody here have any experience dealing with "doctor sony"? Would love to believe this is true (sounds too good to be).
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=849965
http://www.ebay.com/itm/REPAIR-SERVI...item2eca75a0f5
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  #253  
04-22-2015, 12:19 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Anybody familiar with MYK Camcorder repair in Des Plaines, IL?
http://www.myksvc.com/camerarepair/
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  #254  
04-23-2015, 07:51 AM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Update: Starlit TV doesn't repair camcorders anymore
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  #255  
04-24-2015, 04:07 AM
Flamaant Flamaant is offline
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wow thats a lot of posts.
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  #256  
04-24-2015, 04:46 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Flamaant View Post
wow thats a lot of posts.
For this site, yes, it is for a single thread. But this thread is so rich with information of all kinds. It really is a good read, and one that I'll probably feature in the near future.

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  #257  
05-14-2015, 02:45 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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It looks like Doctor Sony seems to know what he's doing. He received it last Friday, I received it today (less than a week turnaround time). This is the response I got back:

"Drum stator (sensor board assy) replaced.
Tracking adjustment.
Lithium batterybackup memory replaced.
Mech spot lubrication, cleaning and functional aging test.

It’s the head position sensor board that's causing the TBC to malfunction. Missing rf signal due to erratic switching pulse can screw up TBC and also results to pixilation. Lithium memory back up battery replaced for internal clock and other custom setting kept in memory."

My total cost without shipping was $139.20. If it works great, I for one am a very happy camper.
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  #258  
05-18-2015, 12:37 AM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Unfortunately the image distortion on the scene change is still happening as per below's new capture with the refurbished DCR-TRV520. Doctor Sony is saying the image distortion on the scene change as well as the bright flashes from post#201's third link which is prior to it being refurbished are not camcorder errors but are "recording glitches and tape drop outs, minor tape contamination that can sometimes contaminate the tape path and mechanism". He's basically saying it's either a tape glitch and/or recording glitch. Is this accurate/plausible are am I being taken for a ride? The odd thing is, it happens more on my CCD-TRV65 than it does on the DCR-TRV520 so it does seem to vary depending on camcorder. Doesn't this imply it's the camcorder that's causing the error or is it that the DCR-TRV520 is playing the flashing and image distortion on the scene change as per tape and the CCD-TRV65 just isn't handling it as well? I'll put up samples of another tape if necessary. Thanks!!

Refurbished DCR-TRV520
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigital34/TestVTR5201.avi

Prior to DCR-TRV520 being refurbished:
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...R_DCRTRV52.avi
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  #259  
05-18-2015, 09:54 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
Unfortunately the image distortion on the scene change is still happening as per below's new capture with the refurbished DCR-TRV520. Doctor Sony is saying the image distortion on the scene change as well as the bright flashes from post#201's third link which is prior to it being refurbished are not camcorder errors but are "recording glitches and tape drop outs, minor tape contamination that can sometimes contaminate the tape path and mechanism". He's basically saying it's either a tape glitch and/or recording glitch. Is this accurate/plausible are am I being taken for a ride?
Doctor Sony is correct. It's both a recording glitch and a tape glitch. As for that flash, your camera's AGC darkened the image at the brightest point to keep from blowing out everything in sight. AGC is a headache 99% of the time, but in this case you would have several bright, colorless frames without it. Don't forget that video and film have a luminance range, and you have to observe those limits.

As for the image distortion, that's not unusual for a camera to start recording a new segment with a few problem frames. I managed to clean up most of it in Avisynth, although I had to delete the first 3 useless frames. Avisynth used motion interpolation to create 6 new frames. Sometimes this works, sometimes there's too much image change and you have to take what you can get or just live without a few frames. I also brought your luma levels down, but most of the brights are still badly clipped during capture. Other than the luma adjustment, I didn't do any denoising, etc., I just fixed some bad frames and some borders. The basic correction code:

Code:
ColorYUV(off_y=-18,gamma_Y=12,off_u=-4)
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
AsssumeTFF().QTGMC(preset="very fast")

# ----- Remove frames 1311 - 1313 (these are deinterlaced frame numbers) ------
# ----- Note that in Avisynth there is more than one way to do this   ----
a1=last
t1=a1.Trim(0,1310)
t2=a1.Trim(1314,0)
t3=t1+t2

# ---  frame numbers below reflect that 3 frames were removed ----
t3
ReplaceFramesMC(1312,1)
ReplaceFramesMC(1314,1)
ReplaceFramesMC(1320,2)
ReplaceFramesMC(1325,2)
AssumeTFF().SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()
return last
Results are attached. You can open the mpg in VirtualDub and play it frame-by-frame.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vhsdigital34 View Post
The odd thing is, it happens more on my CCD-TRV65 than it does on the DCR-TRV520 so it does seem to vary depending on camcorder.
Nothing strange about it. A tape often plays better in a different player. That's why I keep 4 VCR's.


Attached Files
File Type: mpg TestVTR5201_frame_fix.mpg (5.14 MB, 0 downloads)

Last edited by sanlyn; 05-18-2015 at 10:09 AM.
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  #260  
05-18-2015, 06:05 PM
vhsdigital34 vhsdigital34 is offline
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Thank you very much Sanlyn!!

I was under the impression all of the Sony Hi/Video8 camcorders have the same internal mechanism to play tapes. If there are differences in playback, do we know which model has the best performance?

Also, it looks like "Doctor Sony" on ebay (or his site) can be added to the list of trustworthy Sony Camcorder repair shop options?
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